‘Out of respect…’: Team Shinde's disqualification list skips Aaditya Thackeray

Bharat Gogawale, chief whip of the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde, a decision to include Aaditya's name will be taken by the newly appointed chief minister.

Bharat Gogawale, chief whip of the Shiv Sena faction led by chief minister Eknath Shinde, said on Monday notices were issues for disqualifying 16 Sena legislators who defied the whip during the trust vote.

Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray leaves after attending a special session of Maharashtra assembly at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai on Monday. (PTI)

He, however, added that the name of Aaditya Thackeray, former minister and son of Uddhav Thackeray, was not added in the list out of respect for Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray.

He said a decision in this regard will be taken by Shinde. “We have not given his (Aaditya Thackeray's) name (for disqualification) given our respect for Balasaheb Thackeray... The CM will take a call on this,” Gogawale was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The Shinde faction gave a petition to newly appointed speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly Rahul Narwekar for the suspension of 16 MLAs of the party belonging to Uddhav Thackeray's camp for violation of whip during the floor test that Shinde won comfortably.

In the 288-member House, 164 MLAs voted for the motion of confidence, while 99 voted against it. Three legislators abstained from voting, while 21 legislators, including Congress's Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar, remained absent.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed to hear on July 11 a fresh plea of the Thackeray faction challenging the decision of the newly elected speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly to recognise the new party whip of Shiv Sena rebels led by Shinde.

In a late-night development on Sunday, newly elected Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narvekar recognised Gogawale as the chief whip of the Sena, removing Sunil Prabhu, who belongs to the Thackeray faction.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari said the fresh plea would be heard by the same bench after the summer break along with other pending pleas.

Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray group, said “the speaker has no jurisdiction to recognise whips. This is changing the status quo of proceedings before this court. The speaker yesterday at the stroke of the pen at midnight elected the whip”.